Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

Not 'will be', member for Melbourne Ports. God forbid! He would be if he could be, but hopefully never will be. Surely the Australian public are smarter than that! But, in his budget in-reply speech this year, the debt just blew out and out and out. We heard the Treasurer, in question time today, mention the fact that, for every minute that the opposition leader stood and delivered that budget in-reply speech, it would cost this nation, if it were to be implemented, another $200 million. Thank goodness no-one from Labor's side called for an extension of time! It was $200 million a minute—that is just extraordinary—but without any possible way of saying, 'This is how we will pay for it; this is what we will do if we are elected to govern this great nation, and these are the savings that we will implement to actually pay for it.'

This is not the first time that Labor has opposed its own budget repair measures. In addition to standing in the way of this $2.8 billion budget repair measure, Labor is also standing in the way of other policies that it itself announced but is now refusing to vote for. Labor measures that Labor now opposes now total—they have now racked up—$6.5 billion. You can look through the list. There is this particular $2.8 billion budget repair measure; the change of Labor's student start-up scholarships, provided as a grant, to a loan repayable through HECS, which was a $2.1 billion savings measure. The abolition of the discount for paying HECS fees up-front was a $336 million savings measure. The change to apply an efficiency dividend to university funding was another $1.2 billion savings measure. And they all add up.

The trouble is: Labor could not manage the country properly in the six years from 2007 to 2013 when in government. They could not manage government. They certainly could not manage money. And we all know of Labor's absolute fiscal ineptitude when it came to making sure that the economy was ticking along nicely and debts were being repaid. And what did Labor leave us? They left us with $133 million a day over and above what we could afford to pay. So, every day, when Australians go out to work, and every day, when we are trying to run the economy, we are trying to pay our debts and we have got balance of payments figures, but, under Labor, we are $133 million a day over and above what we should be. And we have got that down to $96 million a day. That is way, way too high. But we are getting it under control because of sensible, measured, responsible Treasury management by Joe Hockey, the member for North Sydney.

When questioned on why the Labor Party is now opposing its own savings, the member for Maribyrnong's only response was: 'We're the Labor Party.' What sort of response is that? Chris Uhlmann, on ABC AM on 17 July 2014, asked: 'And we'll get to that, but why won't you even back your own cuts?' And Bill Shorten, the member for Maribyrnong, says: 'Chris, we're the Labor Party'! What sort of response is that to a question? 'How are you going to pay for it?' 'We're the Labor Party.' I mean, seriously! These savings now form part of the $58.6 billion black hole of the Labor Party—$58.6 billion; it is just extraordinary!

We have to get on with the job of repairing the budget. That is what good Liberal-National governments do. We come in and do that. We did it in 1996. Kay Hull, my predecessor, was elected in 1998, and she often talked to me about the hardship and heartache that, even two years in to government, the Howard government, in its early years, suffered as a result of trying to fix up the mess that Labor left it. And it did, with prudent fiscal management by John Howard; by Peter Costello; by the National Party leaders at the time, Tim Fischer and John Anderson, and, later, Mark Vaile. They fixed up the mess that Labor left and restored confidence to regional Australia and did all the sorts of things that people expect Liberal-National governments to do. And, once again, in September 2013, the Australian public tasked us with that very important job of fixing up the mess left by the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years. But what do we get? We just get baseless accusations in this place, we get measures of mass distraction in this place from those opposite and then, when it goes to the Senate, we, again, get obstructionism; again, we get held up; again, Labor will not even pass their own budget savings measure. I say: shame on them.

Our budget is about building a stronger economy, and that is what we saw when the Treasurer, Mr Hockey, announced his 2015-16 budget. While Labor is distracted about all things which are not getting on with the job of creating prosperity, are not about generating new jobs, are not about fixing our balance of payments and are not about increasing hope, reward, opportunity and investment, we are getting on with the task of building a strong and prosperous nation. The focus of the Abbott-Truss coalition government is on a credible path back to surplus. It is not going to happen next year. It is not going to happen the year after. We are not going to stand here—and Joe Hockey is certainly more sensible than to stand here and promise, 'The four years of surpluses which I announce tonight', as the member for Lilley so mischievously did. He is not about to mislead people to say, 'The surpluses I announce', because he knows that it is going to be a tough job; he knows it is going to be a tough task. But jobs are now growing at well over three times the pace under Labor.

The coalition government's budget cuts the small business company tax rate to the lowest in almost 50 years—since 1967—bringing it down from 30 per cent by one and a half per cent. All around the Riverina region that I represent, that has really been welcomed. On the way home last Friday, I pulled up along the Sturt Highway and Roger Morton, a mate of mine, was fixing a fence. I pulled up, walked across and chatted to him while he was repairing his fence. I said, 'You know that—

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